The Opelousas courier., 1887-07-16
GLOVE MAKING.
Facts About the Manufacture
Of Hand Coverings.
Where Four-Fifths Of All American Made
Gloves are Produced.

Nobody, SO far as We know, has ever
disputed the proposition that one-half of
the world does not know how the other
half lives; and we have little fear Of
contradiction when we m Ike bold to
declare that probably oae-half of the
people of the United States do not know
where their gloves come from. Of course
it is generally known that gloves of fine
kid, such as ladies wear, and gloves of
q certain form which fashion prescribes
Tor men, are brought from abroad; but
whence comes the great supply Of all tine
other gloyesa The answer would not be
very far wrong if one were to say from
Fulton County. New York. Four flths
I Of the gloves made in america, it is es-
timated, are manufactured in the county
named, and the manufactures which
make gloves else where are in great rart
the chill lren Of Fulton County, indebted
to her for their nurture and their estab-
lishment in life.s
The headquarters Of the glove-mak.
ing industry in Fulton County are forty
five miles north west Of Albany, in
Johnstown township. The villages of
G!oversyille and Johnstown, in that
township, contain a population of about
twenty thousand, seven-eighths of
whom are glove makers. There are up
ward of one hundred and fifty glove
manufactures in the section. Glove
making in what is now Fulton County
was begun early in the present century.
Upon the passing away of Sir William
Johnson, the famous Indian agent of
colonial times, and of his son Sir John,
q Jealous Tory who fought fercely for
King George the Dutch farmers of the
neighborhood looked about for some
better means of support than were
offered to them by the soil, which was
not fitted for husbandry, although there
Was good grazing land upon the stony
hili-sides. A shrewl family from Con-
necticut are probably credited with in
Producing into the neighborhood the
manufacture Of buckskin gloves. There
was in the convenient North Woods in
those days Q supply q material for this
manufacture SO great that nobody
would have thought it could ever be ex-
hausted, but the demand of the ameri-
can people for gloves proved to be still
| greater, and the North Woods deer
ceased to be depended upon by the
Fulton County glove-makers ysars ago.
To-day the gloves manufactured in
G.oversville and Johnstown are made
of skins brought from the most distant
parts of the globe. The great bulk are
buckskins and sheep skins, but there are
many others which the glove-makers
ase-among them seal skin, dog skin,
East India coWhide, and the skin Of the
6outh American water hog. The bulk
Of the buckskin comes from Mexico and
Central aud South America. The deer
Of the tropics is covered with q heavier
skin than covers the deer Of these lati.
tudes, and the finest sheep skin comes
! from South Africa, and is that of the
Cape hair skeep. "The coarser the
wool, the finer the skim" is a glove
makers saying. All manner OF furs, too,
go to Fulton County, to be used in fin
ishing the gloves.
The business of glove making in Full
ton County amounts to about eight mill
lion dollars yearly. The wages of the
most skiIlful woIkers-the table cutters,
as they are callcd-run from sixty to
eighty dollars a month; block cutters
get from f~ifty-ive to sixty-fVe dollars
monthly, and machine girls earn, ac-'
cording to their skill, from six dollars
to twelve and fourteen dollars .
week. ~
The skins of which Hrs made
sREodgA very e~xhau5ffve variety OF
processes. Some or them are soaked in
yats variousiy from three days to four
weeks, after which they get a scraping
from the sabeam' worker. They are
then dried into parchment, then soaked
in water, then s'milicd' ii oil then put
upon the beam again an secured of oil
and natural grease with alkali, beng
repeatedly dried in the course Of this
various treatment. After the alkali
securing they are put upon the 'sbreak-
ingn machine, and aro then s'hand-
stakeln with a blunt tool to render
them pliable. Then they go on to the
asbnclS tail, = or emery wheel, and from
there into the identical oil and natural
grease OF which they were secured with
such pains. Then they are wrung out
and colorcd, then again .'broke-stakea'
anil ssinishe = then smoked, and then
turned over to the glovc-makers, who
promptly stake them again, cut them
either On the block d By hand (sstablc11
cutting), silk" them, sew them, do
much else to them, put buttons on them,
ft them oyer metal hands heated By.
steam, sort them. and put them up in
the pastchoard boxes in which they arc
sent to market. The gloves made in
Fulton county are Of all sorts. and range
from . lady's kid to tho cowboys
rauntlet splendid with tassels and gold